Ignored by Omega

All three had been infected and turned just like the dead man outside.

I wanted to die.

"You better get out of the car Jack" I heard Sharon say in a low voice. "Get out before I change too."

Then she sobbed and begun crying.

I was still in shock and barely heard her. Nor did I notice until the pain hit me, that my son had reached over, and I felt a sting on my hand. He bit me but stopped in mid-bite before pulling away.

It was the last thing I remember before someone dragged me out of the car. It was the female cop. Because the other opened the back door and I watched him pump round after round toward my... what had been my kids.

I must have passed out from the shock. Not sure. When I came to, I was in the passenger seat and Ingrid was driving. She looked over for a brief second before focusing on the road ahead. She had to drive around stopped cars and people on the road.

"You OK?" she asked looking at me briefly.

'Ok... what is ok at this point?' I thought.

"No" I responded.

She simply nodded in reply. I can see she had been crying. But for some reason, she seemed functional. Focused on the driving as if it all depended on it. Later I would find out that it was the only thing keeping her from losing it altogether. In one day, she had witnessed her husband and brother turn from normal humans to animals and then be killed.

I was about to start feeling sorry for myself when she told me that her father and mother had been infected as well and turned soon after. Shit! Can this poor woman endure more? Could I?

The cops had to put them down as well. But not before one of the cops got bit and the woman cop had to kill him before he turned. Ingrid managed to get me into our truck, but the female cop could no longer cope with her new reality.

As Ingrid started the engine to drive off, the remaining cop blew her brains out.

I barely took all that in. My mind was still fixated on the image of my kids. The horror of seeing my babies turn to monsters was so devastating. These were the little angels that brought purpose to my life. They were my life, But now were gone. I started crying and sobbed for what seemed like ages. No parent should live to see their children's' death. It wasn't supposed to be that way. We were supposed to grow old gracefully and see our children mature, marry and have children for us to spoil. When our time came, it was our kids that were to see us off, not the other way around.

It was all so fucken wrong and unfair. Not only had a seen my kids die as children, but they had been infected by a plague, virus, whatever the fuck that was unthinkable let alone final and deadly. On top of that, I had not been there to protect them. At first, I felt like it was my fault. But then, after I had run the entire chain of events through my mind, I realized that Sharon, their own mother! She had placed them in danger to leave me and go with her lover. How could she do this? The bitch! That fucken bitch!

"Did Sharon turn?"

"Yes. The cops shot her right after."

"Good" I responded in anger. "I hope she rots in hell."

Ingrid turned to look at me only to realize she is still driving and turning back. Just in time to avoid a burning car in the middle of the road. Neither of us spoke after that. Both of us were deep in our thoughts. What could we say to one another after all we had seen and been through?

Funny how the mind shuts things off when a person is in shock. Reaching for a bottle of water, I realized that my hand was bandaged, and I remembered the bite.

'Oh my God! I got bit! Jeffy bit me'.

I should have been upset... distraught at facing death and knowing what I was to become. But instead, I accepted my fate. My family was gone, so why not me? What else did I have to live for?

"How long ago was this? I mean how long was I out?"

"Hours I guess" she responded wiping another tear away.

Hours. Hours? HOURS! What the fuck?

"What do you mean hours?"

"I said it in English, didn't I?" she responds in an irritated tone. By now the stress of it all is fraying on our nerves.

Do I tell her? Does she know I'm infected? Do I ask about the bandage on my hand? Who bandaged me?

I move my right hand down as if to hide it from her view. But she sees me doing it.

"Does it hurt?" she asks. Shit!

"Ah... not that much. Hardly." Crap what do I say now?

She continues driving and we say nothing.

Why didn't I turn? I should have turned.

"You didn't turn either," she says snapping me out of my haze.

"Eh... what? What do you mean?" fuck...she knows.

"You got bit and didn't turn. Your hand?" she says taking a glance at me. I averted my gaze and she nodded. "You didn't turn."

She said that with definitive certainty.

"You knew?"

She nods.

"Did anyone else see me... not turn?"

"No" she shakes her head. "The other cop didn't know you had been bit. She should have checked, but after killing what was left of her partner, I don't think she was firing on all cylinders. Its why she..."

"I guess not" I replied cutting her off.

"But I saw it. After my mom and dad were gone, I noticed you on the ground and thought you were dead. But you had only passed out. The cop helped me put you in the car. You were out cold, so we didn't notice then. I stopped a few miles after that and checked you out. I saw the wound and knew then. If you were to turn, you would have done it already. I still kept you tied up for a while to make sure."

"But I wasn't tied up..."

"When you woke" she finished my sentence. "That's because I figured you were not going to turn."

"How could you be sure? I could still turn, just take longer."

Later we learned to keep a person tied up longer. But if they didn't turn in twenty-four hours, bitten people were not likely to turn. I don't know of any that had. Ingrid had been lucky with me.

"I think you won't" she replied averting my gaze focusing on the road.

She sensed my questioning gaze on her and sighed as if in resignation.

"You won't, because I didn't either."

Oh shit!

"You got bit?" I asked.

The hair in the back of my neck stood as I reached for my gun. It was not in my pocket or anywhere in site. I noticed a gun on her lap.

"Calm down," she said trying to reassure me.

But I was panicking instinctively. It was stupid really on my part. We had established that I had been bit and survived. Why not Ingrid? But like most of us those days, we were on the edge. Fear drove us more than anything else. You see people turn to monsters and you get that way. Our usual reaction was to run or react first and to think later.

I know that goes against common sense, but in those days, the difference between survival and infection was the ability to respond to one's fears. Most who died didn't. Their mind was still thinking in pre-infection terms. What they were seeing was so horrific and so fantastic, that their mind failed to allow them to react.

Ingrid pulled into a near-empty parking lot and stepped on the brakes. I almost hit the dashboard, but she had my seat belt on, and I didn't. Before I could react, she had the gun on me.

"Listen here," she said with a low determined tone. "Stop and get a hold of yourself."

If not her voice, definitely the gun pointed at my head made me come down real fast. At least to stop and listen.

"You got bit and didn't turn," she said. "And neither did I."

"How can that be?" I asked incredulously.

"Shit, I don't know" she replied with a bemused look "but to be honest, I don't give a fuck because I'm alive. I would suggest you thank God or your lucky stars for having lived as well."

I was too mad at the world, God, and the stars. Everything was too raw.

***

We were burned out. Physically and emotionally. We took turns driving the truck to her grandparents, but the dark and the stress were taking their toll. We almost drove off the road twice.

"We're close," she said looking at her map app on her phone.

"I hope so," I replied. "I'm going to pee in my pants"

"About five minutes," she replied while staring at the map. "You need to take the next left. It's coming up. You're getting close... there's the sign."

Even in my state of exhaustion, I managed to see the turnoff and drive into this long dirt driveway. Fifty feet in from the road there was a fence with a gate.

"There is a code box when you drive up to it. The pin is 99044."

"9044..." I repeated in error.

"No!" she groaned in frustration. "It's 9 9 044. Two nines."

When I stopped by the gate, I looked around with a gun and a flashlight in my hands. I found the code box but was more worried about the infected. Even in that early stage, we were constantly on guard. You would have been as well if you had seen them. If your family had turned in to them.

"It's clear," Ingrid said shining her light over me. "Open the window and punch in the code. I'll cover you."

"Just don't shoot me," I replied and hit the button to lower the window.

"Go. It's 99..."

"9 9 0 4 4," I said punching the code then watching the gate swing to the left on its rollers.

Everything seemed to go in slow motion. The lowering of the driver side window, me entering the code and the gate opening slowly. As the gate began to open, lights came on over it.

It was then we saw the infected around us to the left and right. Three on my side and two on Ingrid's.

I was gunning the engine before the gate was fully open. My left index finger glued on the button raising the window.

"GO! GO!" Ingrid yelled as the truck drove into the gap. "It closes automatically as soon as we are past it. Just GO!"

I ignored her yelling as I focused on driving. The image of the three infected walking toward me was more motivation than ten sessions with Tony Robbins. As soon as the door began to close, I stopped the truck and jumped out with my pistol. No one told me to. By this point, I was running on adrenaline and instinct.

"What are you doing?" Ingrid yelled.

"Need to stop them from getting in," I yelled as I approached the gap in the gate getting smaller so painfully slow on its rollers.

The three infected on my side were cut off by the gate, so I ignored them. But the two on Ingrid's side of the truck were going to make it in if we didn't do something quickly.

Approaching the gap, I lined up my .45 ACP with both hands. Let me tell you, boys and girls. When your weapons instructor tells you to hold the .45 with both hands to aim, you do as he/she says. The thing is a cannon. And if you are jacked up on adrenaline, which we all are in "situations," you need the extra hand to steady your aim.

Even with two hands, I missed my first shot from ten feet away. But this was not a moment for people about to die. Unknowingly, I had chosen to be a survivor of this horror shit-show and put on my big boy pants as I re-aimed.

As my second shot, found its mark, one, then another infected we had not seen, strolled past the one whose brains I had just splattered and entered just as the gate closed behind them.

A shot went off to my left followed by another as I aimed at the second infected. This time I fired true and watched the red mist of its brain splash across the beam of light. Again, in slow motion, I saw a second stream of mist fly past me in a different direction as Ingrid's second shot hit the head of the first infected. A woman with bright red hair missing an arm. Now missing most of her head.

Her... she ceased to be a she and became an IT sometime during that day. Then the gate closed, and the light turned off. Our night vision was shot to shit in the immediate darkness.

"Back in the truck!" Ingrid yelled backing toward her open passenger door.

I had further to go from the back of the truck to my door, and only my hand on the vehicle to guide me as my eyes adjusted. It took an eternity to get there. In my horror-filled imagination, I thought hundreds of infected were around us. There is no way to deny it or sugar coat it. I ran in panic. Somewhere near the door, I heard Ingrid's passenger door slam shut and saw her moving inside the cab.

"Come on!" she yelled.

Just as I got my night vision to focus, I saw her. Saw it just on the other side of my door. Instinctively I raised my pistol as Ingrid turned her flashlight (torch to you Brits,) and near blinded me again. But I was able to see what I was dealing with.

It was an older woman. With white disheveled and blood covered hair. She had a ghastly wound that had torn off part of her jaw. It hideously hung from just one side of her face exposing her bloody teeth and tongue. It was clear that someone has shot her in the head but missed her brain to end her miserable existence. One eye was hanging from its socket while the other stared at me.

"Nana..." Ingrid gasped in anguish. "No... no..."

It was as I heard Ingrid's sobs that I realized the infected before me was her grandmother whose place we had just come into. Infected-nana bumped on my door then bumped into it again and again. It was becoming apparent that the infected had minimal brain capacity. But what they had was enough to home in on the uninfected like a guided missile.

I could hear Ingrid sobbing to my right as Infected-nana continued to bump on the opened truck door. I placed a hand upon the door handle and kept the door steady.

"Ingrid, you know what we have to do don't you?" I said in a surprisingly calm voice.

I snatched the flashlight from her and used it to look around the truck. There were no infected inside the compound near the fence. Just the three outside that were bumping like automatons on the metal links.

"Look away," I said to her and waited until she turned her head; still sobbing.

I made it quick for the old girl. Or what had been Ingrid's grandmother. One shot to the side of her head, and it was over. Ingrid was still sobbing when I got in the cab and closed the door shut.

Just to make sure, I drove around in a circle pointing the lights at the fence and the surrounding area. It was empty of infected save for the three we had ended inside the fence. Then I drove on the gravel driveway until I reached the main house.

It too had a fence and gate, with lights that came on automatically. What the fuck was this place? I thought. Were these people survivalists or what? This time the lights stayed on. Inside "the keep" as I thought of the place, there was another box on a pole with a number pad and a button marked lights. I left them on.

"Ingrid," I said to her as she merely whimpered by that point. "We need to go inside and check the place out. Do you think you can do that?"

"I... I..." she managed to say between sobs and just stared at me. "I can't."

"You want to stay out here?"

"NO! No!" she wailed and grabbed my arm. "Take me with you."

'That's what I thought,' I said to myself.

In the next twenty minutes, she followed me around the house as we checked every room from the basement to the second floor. We even checked the attic to be sure. Then we walked around the house to check the inner fence perimeter. All was clear and the fence was fine. The lights shone down the incline almost reaching the outer fence.

When back inside, we sat in the kitchen and just stared at each other. The adrenalin was wearing off and we both were tired. Raiding the fridge, we found cold cuts and made sandwiches. Warm food would have to wait.

The place was built like a fort. Stone walls. Metal covers over the windows and a security system. There was still electricity and running water, but I knew that would not last long.

"We better fill as many jugs and pots with clean water," I said. "Right?"

She looked at me and shook her head.

"There is clean water in large jugs downstairs in the basement storeroom. That and food."

That did it. I had to ask.

"Were your grandparents survivalists? Or what?"

"Compared to others, they were amateurs."

"Others?" I asked. "There are others with more stuff and bigger forts?"

She nodded.

"Aren't you glad they were?" she replied.

Then she tensed up as she straightened. My first instinct was to go for my pistol.

"My grandfather," she said. "We found her, but not him."

"Well, he is not inside the fence. Unless they had a hidden bunker or something."

"They do and I checked. He is not there."

'Of course, they would have a bunker,' I thought.

She was outside the inner fence I thought. There was a good chance grandpa was out there as well. Probably infected or already dead.

"You get some sleep I told her, and I'll stand guard. I'll wake you in about four hours. OK?"

"Why am I sleeping first?" she asked in a tone that women give men when their feminist ire is enflamed.

"Oh," I said. "You want me to sleep first? Because I will. You can stay up if you like. But I don't think you will make it past fifteen minutes."

"You won't either," she replied. "Look let's set the alarms and go to sleep upstairs."

"I don't want to be trapped up there..." I started to say.

"We won't. Trust me."

Fifteen minutes later we had double checked all the doors, windows and made sure the alarms were on. Yes, her grandparents had redundancy with two separate alarm systems. There were multiple cameras outside that could be accessed from desktop PCs and monitors in the kitchen, study, and the master bedroom upstairs. And there was a hidden stairway that led down to the first floor or the basement.

I wanted to be in the master bedroom so I could access the security systems, but Ingrid was reluctant to sleep in her grandparents' bed.

"I just can't," she replied. "We don't even know where my grandfather is."

"OK, go to sleep in the guest room. I'll stay in their room and watch the screens. I'll wake you in a few hours."

She was in the guestroom for about five minutes before she ran into the bedroom and up to me sitting on a chair watching the screens. Before I could say a word, she was sitting on my lap with her head on my shoulder. I could tell from the shaking that she was still scared.

"I can't sleep in there," she said. "Not alone. Just hold me for a while."

I held her as she settled on my lap and I watched the security cameras. Nothing was stirring outside. But something was stirring on my lap. While my mind was still scared out of my wits my body was feeling this warm woman's body on it and reacted to her.

'She has to know,' I thought.

I'm no porn star, but at seven inches I'm above average in length. And it was poking up under her until I felt her stir on my lap. Instead of recoiling she hugged me closer and moved around on my lap making things worse. We're talking major crotch bite and serious arousal.

"Ingrid," I finally said. "Can you... I mean can you move a bit... so I..."

"Jake, please don't push me away. I need to be held right now."

"It's OK, I'll hold you all you want. I just... I need to adjust things down there. You know... get comfortable?"

She looked up at me and for a few seconds, I wasn't sure what she was thinking. Then she smirked at me and wiggled her butt on my hardon.

"Oh shit!" I think I managed to get out before she grabbed my face and kissed me.

We kissed hard and frantically. All the anxiety and fear of the day accented by multiple rushes of danger induced adrenaline drove us to a state of frenzy. We practically tore each other's clothes off and fell on the bed. There was no foreplay. Other than the groping we had done undressing each other and the hot kissing, neither of us was interested in the finer acts of foreplay to impress each other with.

Ingrid was... is a beautiful woman. Not runway model beautiful. More like real woman beautiful. Not an ounce of fat on her, but erotic to no end. Her mere touch made me hard. Harder if I can explain it that way. In fact, I can't explain it. Call it chemistry. Fait. Kismet. All I know is that her touch was enough to make my engine rev up to overdrive.